1.31.2009

WARREN ELLIS HURT ME

In the new chapter of Warren Ellis' online comic, Freakangels, Warren takes us (via teleportation) to see the underside of the apocalypse. Until now, we've only been privy to discussion and mention of just how horrible the world outside of Whitechapel, London was. But in Episode 44, we not only see it, we are beaten over the hearts with it. Enlarge the above image to get a taste of how the other half lives. Panel 3 is about where I started stringing a noose.

I always smell my drinks at parties. This was something I'd learned through repeat near-misses over the years. With this in mind, I went out to the freezing garage and took from the bag of ice, filling my cup so I could end the night of substance abuse with a beer pong cup full of Sprite. Too selfish to care about the noise I made when people were sleeping all around the house, I'd just spent the last hour or more watching Youtube videos of spoken-word poets. Now it was too quiet, not easy to adjust to hardcore silence.

I set up in what was still the guest room the last time I was here, where a girl was sleeping deeply as possible without a breathing tube being necessary and plugged in my laptop, settling down on the clean carpet. The sleeping girl's bed turned out to be a massage table, skewed diagonal, hipster-intentional style. It was one of only three pieces of furniture in the room.

Keeping quiet while typing near a sleeping person is always a challenge, so it helps if you just don't care if they wake up. I didn't. I couldn't think of anything silent to do online while high, and I didn't have my notes with me, so I browsed My Documents and chose a rough, "stream of consciousness" draft I'd thrown together the night before about a dream I never had, about a girl I'd never meet:

With no expectations, just a sense of how appropriate it was for the dead to speak on the dead, I found myself running unfamiliar streets, running through doorways that led to places miles away, and being chased by my dead grandfather, head of a lion on his shoulders like it used to be when I had this recurring nightmare as a child. The difference was that he'd never been a prophet before, trying to force me to accept his foresight as universal law. Fuck that. That's what physics is for.Yet, out of deference to his memory and the clips of insight you always carry in dreams, I sat down "Indian style" on the floor. It was dirty, or maybe just dirt.

In this extremely creepy stop motion video, a group of children, somehow led by Mark Twain, come in contact with an "angel", who speaks in a HIM voice, and shows them the meaning of life. There isn't one. No wonder this was banned from television.

1.28.2009

SO FAR GONE

Aubrey Drake Graham (going by Drake in his music career) was one of the stars of the Canadian television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. It was a tough job. He had to date a nice girl who tried ecstacy and lost all her friends becoming a goth in the aftermath. He was best friends with the class idiot, who later caused him to be shot and paralyzed (but he sort of learned to walk again). He had to deal with embarassing erections (we've all been there, right?) and failed revenge plans. And then he graduated high school, which is all you can really hope for out of a school where all that happens.

But somewhere in the midst of all this, real life Aubrey started a real life music career (not unlike the one that tv Aubrey started). Being on the show was a serious setback to his musical superstardom and creative process, but now that his character has apparently been scraped out of continuity, he can focus on his music career. Which finally brings me to the point of this post.

Drake, who already released music here and there over the last few years is not currnetly working on an album-quality mixtape called So Far Gone (with the help of October'sVeryOwn). This time around he's working with artists like Lil Wayne, Santogold, Lykke Li, and a host of others. And according to the reviews out of Canada, Drake is bringing his A game.

Bio:"This is better than good; this is gold— SANTOGOLD!""Santogold is a survivor of a half-century worth of living along musical evolution's most cutting edges. ... (more) The only live act that can boast of having out-aged Barbara Bush, having outlived Mr. Miyagi and out-styled Liberace, Santogold is here with future flavor.

Already receiving weighty club rotation and airplay in urban Afghanistan and downtown Beirut, Santogold is the first act of the century to boast a post-war following on the International Space Station Mir. Following a live performance broadcast from three thousand miles off the Cape of Good Hope last June, inmates at Leavenworth Penitentiary received Santogold with a celebratory confetti parade. Just another first for the modern super group that knows no bound.

Composed of absolutely no members, Santogold is also the first musical outfit capable of claiming the planet's broiling collective consciousness as their front woman. Longtime collaborator, singer and songwriter Santi White says of her work with Santogold, "We began trying to write pop songs to sell, which made us depressed, so we started writing songs for ourselves instead." The results of that self-centered conceit is the songwriting work heard for the first time on the full length Santogold album, as yet untitled, to be released in 2007 on the Lizard King label.

As unmastered tracks leaked over the internet this past November, the request lines of radio stations from Miami to Hanoi began freezing with a flood of calls from listeners eager to hear the new Santogold sound over their frequencies. From his radio show in the United Arab Emirates capital city of Abu Dhabi, Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) played what Santogold snippets he had been able to pirate from a bootleg MySpace page dedicated to the group. Days later, BBC Radio One reported that the unreleased Santogold debut was heard blasting from the iPod shuffle of Libyan ruler Moammar Qaddafi as he entered an international summit in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Recognizing the urgent need to address the uproarious buzz, Santogold released the following statement through their label reps at Lizard King: "The response to our unmastered songs has been both premature and phenomenal! We were happy to hear that the children of Darfur have found hope in our melodic interpretation of life on the battlefield of love! We're hoping that each and every 20-something from downtown San Francisco to central Mumbai will also learn something from our work! And to the people dropping no-knock fire on old ladies in Atlanta: shame on you! Santogold ain't with that shit!"

The trajectory of such early successes leading to newfound political clout is nothing new for Santogold, whose debut album, though half a century in the making, is sure to rock glass pipes from the Lincoln Memorial to Buckingham palace. The flavor of the gold is guaranteed: Santogold!"

1.27.2009

DOUBT: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE STREEP

Okay, the title of this post is a little misleading. I've ALWAYS loved this woman. She is, for lack of a better term, the queen of my GILF actress fantasies. Nobody does it like Meryl and I seriously do compare every female dramatic actress to her. She's the best. The best. Not tied with anyone, just the queen. And so I had to see Doubt.

Doubt is the movie that all the alter boys are whispering about, based on the play that all the alter boys were whispering about.

Favorite Meryl moment from Doubt:Phillip Seymour Hoffman: "Where is your compassion?"Meryl Fucking Streep: "Nowhere YOU can can get at it."

You get it? Because she suspected him of molesting children? Oh! Burn!

"Sometimes I think I was born backwards... you know, come out of my mum the wrong way. I hear words go past me backwards. The people I should love, I hate, and the people I hate..."

And then she overdosed on high quality heroin. *sigh*

But those wouldn't be her last words. No, Effy brought us such gems as:

Effy: You really don't understand anything, do you Tone?Tony: What?Effy: As long as it's ringing. She knows you're there.

Effy: You're an idiot. You are fucking the wrong girl. It's Cassie you love. You only got mixed up with Michelle, cause let's face it, men are dicks. And there was no one else to screw. Which is totally fucken pathetic. Isn't it?Sid: Has anyone ever told you Effy, this sneaking up on people and getting inside their heads. It's no cool okay?Effy: I'm right though.

Pandora: Where we going? ...Ef?Effy: Yes?Pandora: Where we going, Ef?Effy: To pick up.Pandora: To pick up what? (To mother on phone) Hi mum.We're just going to pick up. (To Effy) She wants to know what we're picking up.Effy: Drugs.Pandora: (To mother on phone) Salad.

Madame Deluca: And what emotion have you chosen to depict?Effy: Anger, Jealousy, Bitterness, Tiredness, Hope, Lust, Love.Madame Deluca: A veritable feast. So where is it?Effy: It’s everywhere.

Will you be as amazing in Series 3, Effy? Will you grow as a person and character in ways that I can't help but to feel for you through every step? Will you make me confront feelings of attachment to a television character that I've never felt before?

People are interesting. It's a fact. Even in the lives of the most boring person, there's bound to be something or some interaction that has cause a chain events in their lives that helped shape who they are today. The problem is that you can't always understand how small actions in a series of small actions that a have been directed at a person can change them one way or another.

This makes people interesting to study, to observe. Oliver, the main character of IED Tokyo, spends a huge part of his life studying and watching people, trying to understand why people do the things they do and hopefully use it all as a tool for creating stronger characters and stories in his writing. He fixates on lives and aspects of them, trying to work out people's actions in relation to their motivations, and in return, what they would do when placed in a particular situation.

This is what writers like Brian K. Vaughan are amazing at; taking a character and making them a person through their decisions and indecisions, and building their story so that no matter how unexpected and tragic or brilliant their actions are, there's always a firm link that allows you to believe that a character's actions were within them. This is something that the writers of Heroes didn't do a good enough job with when they overhauled Sylar in Volume 3. It's also what makes it believable, yet completely fucking unbelievable!, that Alter would kill 355 in Y: The Last Man (and don't even get me started on her motivations for EVERYTHING she put the world through).

There's a difference between writing a story and writing people into existence. When you write people, its easily possible to become emotionally invested in their lives and deaths (Skins, I love you).

And that's what I hope to be able to do in my own writing. Because what's the point of creating a person if no one cries hysterically when they die?

A chinese restaurant owner puts the 23rd consecutive angry call on hold and goes to check, once again, if there are bugs in his kitchen. There aren't. He always gets an A on his health inspections, and his bleach, so concentrated that it's illegal outside the virology industry, is only sold on the black market. So what the fuck are people talking about when they say they found termites in their fortune cookies, causing words to be eaten away, changing the messages from fortunes to threats? At this point he would be willing to personally deliver to anyone calling him to place an order, even to the black neighborhoods.

This is not related to the other events. This is just shitty luck. But across town,...zombies.

I'm starting to think that its okay to want it all. The mindset of not settling for anything is what inspires people to push forward. It's what motivates me in my writing, my art, my search for the perfect album, my dedication to building the perfect sandwich. And it keeps me from buying clothes from the mall. Think of it as taking control of your own evolution.

But anyway, I saw this shirt on the DesignByHumans website and fell in hardcore lust with it. If I wasn't completely broke, I'd buy it. But as it stands, I'll have to wait two weeks.

What if The Ramones were a group of Latin-American skateboarders in 2005 SoCal who couldn't help but skate & destroy, drink & screw? Well, they'd be something like the main characters in Wassup Rockers, a 2005 film by Larry Clark, the director that essentially discovered Rosario Dawson and Chloe Sevigny, and started my life-long infatuation with the former (Wassup Rosie?).

Hey, wanna see a young Rosario sit nervously while awaiting the results of an HIV test? Watch KIDS.

Life sure has been hard since Lex Luthor got me with that Kryptonite shank and left me wheelchair-bound and without my powers (yes, that was a Superman Returns reference). I mean if I had my x-ray vision, I wouldn't have had to spend hours on Google Images just to find out what the Coraline Dunks looked like inside the box.

Yes, that's right. Coraline Dunks. In honor of the movie Coraline, based on the book by "uncle" (he doesn't know I call him that) Neil Gaiman, Nike is releasing a pair of limited edition (obviously) Dunks. Dunks that I haven't seen.

After a long hiatus and motivational drought, I've decided it may be time for me to give in to my immoral urge to stencil and spray...and huff (no, not huff). In between being a shitty writer who can't meet personal deadlines, I've begun the process of planning for a new series of mediocre canvas stencil graffiti pieces. And this time, I'm inviting wheat paste along for the ride. For my one dedicated reader, there's even a recipe for wheat paste somewhere on this blog. Can you find it? I'll give you a hint: It's marked by a blue paw print

Strings of beads break apart and fall down stone steps in Japan, while a vision quest leads a teenager to certain death in California, while a cross is inverted to signal the start of mass in New England, while an a life-long and career psychic in Reykjavik lights a candle and covers it with a lacquered skull, and asks it about what it means that she’s stopped dreaming. Even on the dangerous amounts of LSD she’s downed with her ice water, all she can hear is nothing. And this is the first time she’s feared the future.

A vision quest leads a teenager to certain death in California, while a cross is inverted to signal the start of mass in New England, while a candle flickers dully through the eyes of a skull in Iceland, while a family of Shinto shrine keepers ascend to the highest mountainside in their region of Japan to divine the annual lunar forecasting, using the beads, strung on the hair of a goddess, and passed down through countless generations. As the eldest male rubs the beads in his hand, this god-hair twine snaps with a chalky sound and the beads that make their lives worth living are taken by gravity to the edge of the high stone stairway. And the fall.

A cross is inverted to signal the start of mass in New England, while a candle flickers dully through the eyes of a skull in Iceland, while strings of beads breaks apart and fall down stone steps in Japan, while a young Native American boy with no clue what to do with his life, and dreams that extend beyond the reservation, sets out on a vision quest, hoping to get signs and advice from his gods and ancestors. He does everything right, entering his trance and wandering into the desert, beyond the recent tracks of man, but nothing expected happens. He doesn’t see his future, his gods, his past, or the edge of the cliff he’s walking toward. All he sees is black.

A candle flickers dully through the eyes of a skull in Iceland, while strings of beads break apart and fall down stone steps in Japan, while a vision quest leads a teenager to certain death in California, while a Satanic church prepares to start their Saturday mass, inverting a cross in the function room of the Catholic church they’re renting for the night as a sign of respect for their beliefs. They follow one another in prayer, then take communion of fresh goat blood, not knowing that they’ve all just been infected with rabies. They pop hallucinogenic mushrooms, partly to disrespect the premises, but mostly to prove they’re more fun than the stuck-up Satanists across town. And as they take effect, the congregation doesn’t feel any of the usual sensations associated with mushroom use. All they feel is an overwhelming urge to help people, because something bad is going to happen.

All these things are related, and thus can not be mentioned without one another. Seriously. Try to mention just one event. You can’t. You took a deep breath and it all poured into your head as one. All these things are related, and thus can not be mentioned without one another.

Hipsters, Arabs, Klansters, Border Patrol Nazis, Africans, South Asians, guess what? It's a fucking scarf. That's all. There's honestly so much debate over the wearing of a scarf that people seem to feel has a built-in terrorist connotation because some of the Billion plus people who have been wearing them for generations have decided to make the wrong decisions in life.

These scarves have always been around and have always been equally entrenched in local fashion as they were in local function and local militancy. While they do, in fact, sometimes make a statement, the vast majority of these scarves are just...scarves. With a pretty cool pattern. And that should be enough. There shouldn't need to be a longstanding debate over what they mean. They MEAN to keep your head, face, and neck covered, like all scarves, whether it be because the sun and sand are out to get you or because that bank really need robbing or because everyone else is doing it. It doesn't matter. Get over it. And don't make arguments without research. If you were to walk into a debate with an argument based on your neighborhood ignorance, you'd deserve whatever loss you got.

I got this message from the E4 website while trying to track down info about the season premiere of Skins. I'm fan of a lot of the random messages these Brits throw on their site, but this is the first one I actually PrintScreened.

Holy shit. I could be upset because now that this movie has been done, and done so well, I will never be able to write my own midnight music odyssey book. But I also just discovered what true love was. Loving a movie was much simpler in the days of VHS, with the VCR's huge tape slot. You can only imagine what it's like to have your dick smashed in a DVD player while you're trying to show your affection to a movie the only way you know how. Firefighters laugh at me. Paramedics laugh at me. Cops ignore my calls. But I just can't help it. I found my movie soulmate.

Check out (by which I mean BUY) Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist in both book and movie form. And buy the goddamn soundtrack.

Hexed is the new comic from BOOM Studios, starring Luci Jennifer Inacio Das Neves (Lucifer for short), a world-class thief with a shadowy past who uses her skills in magic to perform heists of the both Ocean's and Robin Hood varieties.

So far, the story has all the mystery and flash and human drama that's needed to make a good occult comic. After reading issue 1, I have pretty high hopes for what this could be. I hope I'm right, because they're off to a good start.

1.22.2009

OLD MUSIC, BUT WHO CARES

Once again I'm stuck on this Mark Ronson track from his cover album, Version. This one is called Stop Me (If You Think That You've Heard This One Before) and features Daniel Merriweather. It's things like this that keep me a diehard Mark Ronson fan.

Okay, I don't know hot I never mentioned this before. It's been like a weight on my mind since I first saw it. Dead Leaves is like a psychotropic wet dream on film. I couldn't even describe it. And I don't have to. Read the Wikipedia entry. And watch it.

Tank Girl was one of those things I'd let pass me by during my childhood. I was, after all, quite a self-involved little fucker. I remember the movie starring Lori Petty, which played in the background of my mind and almost certainly contributed to the present state of my imagination.

I didn't know why, but when I fell in love with The Gorillaz, the animated band that paved the way for my band, DINOSAUR!, the art style and atmosphere created by their videos set off my nostalgia detector like a marathon of Johnny Quest on Boomerang. If I'd known then what I know now, I probably would have had a seizure.

It seems, and I apologize for being so goddamn late to the party, but both of these things seem to be products of the insanely brilliant mind of one Jamie Hewlett, British-born artist and comic creator. In a mad dash to restore my cool, I've been attacking Amazon for every possible Tank Girl graphic novel collection. I'm working on making amends, Jamie (I write as though he'll ever read this). I'm in the process of just sitting back and admiring his quality of work. Tank Girl is genius for it's character and setting design alone, but the quality of writing and the execution of the plot make this worth reading. READ IT.

Also check out Hewlett's work for The Gorillaz, especially the Journey To The West video for the Beijing Olympics.

But that's enough ego stroking for now. Hopefully my next update will be about me. I like me.

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My name is Tervel Andrews and i want you to believe in me. I'm a writer (i try), artist (i also try), and hater (i excel) looking to share my mind with the world, doomed to continue to create if only for my own sanity.